


Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know

by azhdarchidaen



Series: Crossroads [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, familiar faces in different places.....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6264832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azhdarchidaen/pseuds/azhdarchidaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only a couple of months since Clara parted ways with the Doctor, but a conversation with a certain not-so-stranger stirs up some thoughts on the meaning of "home" -- and specifically, how you find it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know

The scent of fresh pine trees that was the first thing Clara noticed about where they’d landed, so it made her smile when it was immediately followed by the crunch of snow underneath her feet. It all felt very... Christmas-y.

She was venturing into town alone, having insisted that she’d like to have a look around the sleepy little place her and Ashildr’s TARDIS had landed. Or rather a bit beyond it, since they’d ended up in a forest clearing. A forest clearing that felt very much like Earth, actually, which only made Clara want to investigate all the more. And her sneaking suspicion had been right, from what she could tell -- things might be a little middle-of-nowhere, but this was almost certainly the good old 21st century of her home planet, and she was happy to see it for a visit.

Particularly this little town. It seemed quaint, but with an air to it like some of the places she’d loved seeing the most with the Doctor -- where something far more interesting lurked just below the surface, waiting to be discovered. And though the buildings and people she’d seen thus far didn’t spell incredible mystery, the nice little feeling persisted. It made her wonder, a bit, if there was anything more to the familiarity, but as far as she could tell the place was new to her. She and the Doctor hadn’t been to America very many times, and that was exactly where she’d pinpoint herself as being.

“Grunkle Ford!”

A shout shook her from her contemplation, and soon after the speaker -- a girl no older than her very, very early teens and looking about the age of many of Clara’s old English students -- raced past in a blur of pink and rainbow. She narrowly avoided bowling into Clara, instead just clipping her side, and continued on her path towards a grey-haired man in a long tan coat.

He welcomed her into his arms with a slightly surprised “oof” and hoisted her slightly onto his hip, smiling widely.

“I didn’t know  _ you  _ were sneaking into town too!” she said to him. “We can team up!”

“Ah, well,” he replied. “You know how it is -- I needed to preserve some secrecy. It’s hard to find something to surprise Stanley any other time when we tend to always visit ports  _ together.  _ Or at least when I go we do.”

The younger girl squealed, her hands forming into fists and shaking in excitement. “You’re looking for a present for Stan? Can I help?”

He looked about to respond, and Clara very nearly turned away to leave them to their mission, when she was struck with a sudden pang of familiarity. More so than the nostalgia of her travels that blanketed the town, but almost an actual, tangible memory. Something about the man… had it been his face? His voice? She saw so many people, it was hard to know. Of course, it was rare that Clara  _ completely _ forgot one of the people she met and helped on their travels -- a sort of emotional memory that always lingered with her when parting from someone she still wished well. But to put names to faces and stories tended to blur together, unless there was something truly distinctive about--

\--Clara paused her own thoughts as the man who seemed so strangely familiar to her shifted his hand to better hold the girl, the Doctor’s voice suddenly echoing through her mind.

_ “Twelve. Six on each hand.” _

From there, bits and pieces of her recollections started to fall into place. The coat and face, suddenly more placeable with a trigger were both weathered by decades, and looking as if they’d been through more than just years -- but enough to make her wonder. The apparent name and as-she-thought-she-recalled voice, perhaps, stirred something more concrete. By the time she’d run through every fragment of memory should could grab onto, she was essentially convinced. 

It had been on an alien world, and the passage of time had clearly gone differently for him, but Clara was almost certain she could place this “Ford” as the same one she and the Doctor had rescued from that market scuffle just several months ago.

...Had it really only been months, for her? She supposed it had, she really hadn’t been traveling out of the Doctor’s company for  _ that  _ long yet, but things were so different now that all her memories with him felt a lifetime ago.

Clara hesitated slightly, wondering if going to speak to the man would be odd, (or if she was even right at all, which was still up for question) but remembering his previous circumstances if he really was that dimensional wanderer, and now seeing him smiling with familiarity -- at another person, on what seemed to be a  _ relatively _ normal Earth -- had her wondering. 

It may have been rare that she forgot someone she’d helped, but it was rarer still that she got the chance to actually see their stories play out. 

Perhaps she could take the chance.

“Excuse me!” she called out breathlessly, stepping towards the two figures. “Sorry, excuse me. I don’t mean to pry but I have to ask…”

He -- Ford? -- looked taken by surprise, and slowly lowered the brightly-dressed girl from their embrace to get a better look at Clara once she spoke. 

“Do I know you?” he inquired, his younger companion smiling at Clara curiously.

“That’s actually what I was hoping to ask you about,” she said. “And if we do -- know each other, that is -- I think it’s been a great deal more years for you than for me.”

He quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t seem to dismiss the idea entirely, so she continued.

“I caught your name is ‘Ford’?” she said, and he nodded slowly.

“Yes… yes, that’s right.”

Clara tried weighing the chances of being right -- and on the other side of the scale, that if she said what she was considering saying and was wrong, the man would decide she was a lunatic -- but ultimately tossed all the calculations aside for the sake of pure curiosity.

“I’m Clara Oswald,” she said, “and the last time I think we saw each other it wasn’t exactly on Earth.”

His eyes looked momentarily thoughtful, as if rummaging through old memories, then suddenly widened with surprise.

“The brawl in the marketplace on--”

“--Caldoria III,” she said, grinning widely.

“But that was  _ dimensions  _ away…” he marveled, looking her up and down as if to confirm she was there, in the flesh.

“Well  _ you’re  _ here,” she pointed out.

“And you haven’t aged a day! For me that was around thirty years ago!”

“I suppose I’ve got a slightly... unconventional method of travel,” she said, offering that and that only. “Although for me it  _ has _ been several few months.”

“Wait, wait,” the younger girl she’d observed earlier said, closing and then opening her eyes in thought and waving a hand in the air to stop the conversation. “Are you saying you’re someone that Grunkle Ford met while he was  _ stuck in the portal _ ?”

Ford got down on one knee, so as to be closer to the girl’s eye level, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “She is indeed, Mabel. And she’s also someone who helped me a great deal there.”

Mabel’s eyes widened, her face breaking into a grin. “Dipper’s going to be soooooo jealous when I tell him I met one of Grunkle Ford’s cool space friends,” she said excitedly, extending a hand towards her in an enthusiastic offer to shake it. Clara laughed and returned the gesture, taking the little girl’s rainbow mitten in her own as Ford spoke.

“Clara, this is my great-niece, Mabel Pines,” he said. “Which not-so-coincidentally is my own last name as well, I’m not sure I ever told you that.”

“You were a bit out-of sorts at the time,” she said. “More than forgivable. But now I have to ask -- ‘dimensions away’, you’re introducing me to family members… does all this mean....?”

He beamed at her, catching on to the insinuation before she’d even finished the question. “Yes, yes it does,” he said, and the sheer happiness in just that sentence had Clara feeling incredible herself. “It took a great deal of time but here, this time -- this is my home.”

“And we’re not letting him leave!” Mabel shouted, hugging him tightly and making him laugh. He ruffled her hair affectionately.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mabel.”

“Oh, but that’s incredible!” Clara said. “I wondered, you know, I hoped you had a  _ chance _ of getting here, but -- how long has it been, now? That you’ve been back?”

“Several months,” he said with a smile, and though it was unlikely much about the scenario could completely kill her happiness, there was a tiny pang of sadness that tinged Clara’s thoughts at the admission. Several months, but so much grey in his hair. The last time she’d seen the man, he was her own age. Or, well… age didn’t have a lot of meaning to her now, but they’d matched then, and it hadn’t been nearly so long for her.

That was a lot of time spent wandering. And while Clara personally knew exploring’s particular appea,l and the things you could find doing so, the way that Ford smiled at his niece alone told her that he’d probably found what he was looking for _most_ right here.

“And you’re living with your family now?” she asked, pushing on from the thought.

He laughed a little. “Well, everyone’s gathered back in town for the winter, so a bit more so right now. But yes, my brother and I have a ship we’ve been living out of the past few months.”

_ Aha,  _ she found herself thinking,  _ old travelers die hard... _

“What about you?” Mabel asked curiously. “Do you travel all over the place like Grunkle Ford did? All alone?”

“Oh no,” Ford said to his niece, “At least, when I last met Clara she already had a traveling companion with her. In fact,” he cut himself off, looking around excitedly, “that fellow had a vested interest in alien technology, didn’t he? Is he around? There’s something here in town that might--”

“He’s, um,” Clara said awkwardly, before he could continue. “He’s gone.”

Ford’s face softened almost instantly, and he softly rested a hand on his niece’s shoulder.

“Mabel…” he said, “do you think you could give us just a--”

“--I have a very important snowman to go build,” she said, nodding at him before dashing several feet away.

“I’m... sorry to hear that,” Ford said, turning back to Clara, “I’m aware I’m not the best at expressing sympathies but the both of you… you… well, the death of--”

“--Oh, he’s not dead,” Clara said quickly. “We just ended up… separated. For reasons out of both of our control, really.”

“And there’s no possibility that…?”

She gave him a sad smile. “He doesn’t exactly remember me, to be quite honest. There was this memory thing and… well...”

Ford got a look on his face that Clara could only describe as “very complicated” and she wondered for a moment if she wanted to know the story there. She decided not to pry further, if only partially because she wasn’t keen on inviting much more on her part either.

“Clara, I…” he said, trailing off. “...I can’t pretend my own experiences have anything on yours, as they got a rather different ending, but if there’s anything I can do to assist you now, know that I’m deeply moved to offer it. Even regardless of the favor you’re more than owed.”

“You talk about what we did for you like it was a massive act of goodwill,” she said shaking her head. “Even to your niece -- it was a yank from a brawl and a couple of cups of hot chocolate.”

It was then that Clara noticed Ford awkwardly plucking the hem of his coat, and only moments later that he spoke.

“...And the datacard,” he said. “You gave me the datacard, and it saved my life. A week or so after our encounter, there was a riot on Caldoria. I hadn’t left yet and was rather badly injured from getting caught up in things. It didn’t leave me in the best shape to escape anything.  So when I got cornered by some officials who weren’t impressed by my lack of identification papers and recalled hearing about the already-brutal crackdown, I quickly realized I was about to be… made an example of.”

Clara put a hand to her mouth. Even though she knew the man in front of her obviously had to have survived the encounter, the story wasn’t exactly pleasant.

“If I hadn’t had that card to bribe my way out of things…” he shuddered. “I suppose though, this is the place to say ‘let’s not dwell on what didn’t happen’.”

“Oh, but now I wish we’d taken you someplace safer!” Clara said, and he held up a hand.

“I made it off-planet, in the end. Hitchhiked it, but it was a serviceable means to an end. You and the Doctor did more than enough. The gift to me and… well…” he paused, taking a moment to collect himself “...and simply the gestures of kindness. Don’t underestimate those. I’d gone quite a while without one, and you two helped keep me from giving up hope.”

“I suppose a value can’t really be placed on that,” Clara conceded.

“Hardly,” Ford said. “Which is why if I can offer  _ you  _ any in return…”

She smiled. “I’d say in your insistence you already have. But really, I’m alright. I’m not all alone, if that’s your worry, I’ve got another companion now, we’re still doing the whole ‘exploring’ thing. Things are different but… well, changes happen. It’s finding your place once they do that  _ really  _ matters.”

“Yes, well, depends a bit on how long the finding takes, but--”

“--but once you do it’s worth it.”

It was Ford’s turn to smile. “A fair observation,” he said.

“I’ve had several opportunities to make it,” Clara replied.

“Well, regardless,” he said. “I think you’d be more than welcome to at least join us for the holidays -- the house is mixed enough that we’re celebrating about three of them…”

“I assumed it was that time of year,” Clara said, sounding amused. “I think I’ll pass on the invitation, but I wish you luck with your apparent gift shopping.”

Ford looked confused for a moment but soon got an “Aha!” expression on his face. “Ah, yes,” he said before turning around to call. “Mabel! Mabel, do you still want to be my accomplice?”

The girl raced over to them, grinning widely.

“My snowman sort of turned into a snow-pig,” she said, pointing to the, in fact excellent, little snow sculpture where she’d been distracted throughout their conversation.

“It’s impressive,” Clara remarked, and Mabel beamed before turning to tug on her uncle’s coat.

“Are we gonna go look for presents for our brothers now? I was still looking for Dipper, too.”

“I think that was the plan, yes,” Ford said smiling at her. He looked back at Clara. “And I suppose this is us parting ways again.”

“Well it was a pleasure it happened,” she said. “Really, I am  _ so  _ glad to hear you found your home.”

“And I’m glad to hear you’ve got yours… in a manner of speaking,” he said. “Actually, you never mentioned--”

She gave him a grin. “All I’ll say is you’re not the only one hopping around on a ship.”

He shook his head, an almost tangible “You’re not telling me something, but I won’t ask about it out of courtesy -- difficulty, difficulty restrained courtesy” and Clara almost laughed aloud. 

“Then I wish you smooth sailing,” was what he actually said.

“And the same to yourself!”

Clara watched fondly as the two figures walked away from her hand in hand, the smaller of the two hopping slightly to keep up with her great-uncle’s stride. It seemed like a tiny bit of an inverse of the last time she’d parted with the man -- his lone figure the one in motion, as she and the Doctor stood by. Now she was watching someone other than herself offer a long-time traveler the reassurance he needed, and she was the one with perhaps the more wandering left ahead of her.

But really, it had differed more than that. Someone traveling to search for a particular destination was altogether different than traveling for traveling’s sake. One was a search for home, and the other was a kind of home in itself.

“ _ Changes happen _ ,” she’d told Ford  _ “It’s finding your place once they do that really matters.” _

In the end, and all things considered, she thought she hadn’t done so bad for herself. 

Neither of them had.


End file.
